As is known to those of skill in the art, Motor Control Centers (MCC) can include cabinets or enclosures that hold multiple, typically modular, bucket assemblies of various sizes. See, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 4,024,441, the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference as if recited in full herein. Eaton Corporation has recently introduced a MCC product line with compact bucket assemblies that conveniently plug into a slot or space in an MCC cabinet. The product is sold under the product name, Freedom 2100 MCC. See also, U.S. Patent Application Publication Serial Number US2013/0077210, the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference as if recited in full herein.
Motor control centers are used, for example, in some commercial and industrial applications to distribute electrical power to a variety of loads (e.g., without limitation, relatively high power electrical motors, pumps, and other loads).
The bucket assemblies (also known as “buckets” or “units”) can include operating handles that are disposed on the front door. The handle can be a rotary handle configured to convert the rotary motion of the rotary handle to the linear or translational motion of a circuit breaker linear action lever. See, e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,194,983 and 7,186,933, the contents of which are incorporated by reference as if recited in full herein. The handle is typically mounted parallel with the plane of the faceplate of the molded case circuit breaker, but spaced outwardly from it by the depth of the handle mechanism. Usually, a series of linkages are utilized to interconnect the rotary motion of the rotary handle to the linear motion of the circuit breaker handle or lever.
FIG. 1, for example, shows a portion of a prior art motor control center 100. The motor control center 100 includes a multi-compartment enclosure 12 for receiving a plurality of motor control units 10. Typically, each bucket 10 is a removable, pull-out unit that has a respective door 22 (which may be under a front panel). The door 22 is typically coupled to the housing 12 by hinges 28 (shown in phantom line drawing in FIG. 1) to permit access to motor control components of the bucket 10 while it is installed in the enclosure 12. For example and without limitation, the door 22 permits access to a circuit breaker assembly, a stab indicator 32, a shutter indicator 34, and a line contact actuator 36. In the past conventional device panels were not used in favor of a membrane printed circuit panel 30.
When the bucket 10 is fully installed and electrically connected, a user-operator may operate a so-called handle operator or disconnect handle 20h. In a de-energized state of the motor control center 100, the user-operator may operate an isolation feature by moving a slide 140 and inserting crank 42 through an access portal or hole 43 in the door 22 to access the line contact actuator 36 to move a number of line contacts (see, for example, stab contacts 46,48,50 of the prior art bucket 10 of FIG. 2) to an isolated position out of (see FIG. 2) electrical contact with power lines or buses 152 (partially shown in phantom line drawing in FIG. 2) of the motor control center 100. Motor control centers and units therefore (also sometimes called “subunits”) are described in greater detail, for example, in commonly assigned U.S. Patent Application Publications 2009/0086414, 2008/0258667, 2008/0023211 and 2008/0022673, which are hereby incorporated herein by reference.
Despite the above, there remains a need for alternate bucket configurations.